Comments will appear at the bottom of each news story: Just scroll down to the bottom of any news story--including this one--and you'll see a box where you can Add a New Comment, and a list below it of comments others have already posted.

For this initial phase, we'll be using Disqus, a popular web-wide commenting engine. Disqus gave us a very easy interface for adding comments to our news pages, and will also allow us to port over user info and the comments themselves when we deploy our own, more deeply integrated community system in the future.

If you already have a Disqus account, you can dive right in; if you don't, creating one takes a matter of moments. We're also initially permitting (albeit with a little trepidation) guest comments from people without Disqus accounts, but if we find problems with spam or other abuse, we'll restrict access to Disqus account holders.

The comment system is also initially unmoderated, in that submitted comments will post immediately, rather than waiting for someone to approve them. Comments will be moderated, though, in the sense that IR staff will be observing the discussion flow and will delete any comments that violate site rules, as outlined below. To make moderation manageable, threads for news items will automatically close to new comments 30 days after the associated news story has been posted.

The rules

The single overriding rule is to Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself. The web has plenty of places for people to vent their spleen, rant at each other, and generally carry on like spoiled children with chips on their shoulders, so we feel no need to add another. Differences of opinion are rampant, especially in a creative field like photography, but there's no need to call other people names or impugn their intelligence or ethics in the process of stating your own perspective.

Expanding on this, a few specifics. We don't permit:

Sexual or offensive language or content (try to keep words and images work-appropriate)

Any images of partially-clothed children, no matter how tasteful

Harassment of other users

Ad hominem attacks

Anything remotely related to politics :-)

Impersonation of IR staff

Advertising of third party services or websites or products for sale, unless authorized by us in advance, by email

Beyond that, try to stay on-topic for the thread. Threads that wander off into the weeds aren't really useful to the community as a whole.

We're very excited to have IR's readers more actively involved in our site, and look forward to expanding the ways you can engage with us and our content in the months to come. Meanwhile, let us (and your fellow readers) hear your thoughts!

(And of course, feel free to weigh in below with any thoughts you might have about the comment system itself!)